As iNews reports:
Boris Johnson has ordered the army to plan for a potential quadruple crisis this winter involving a second spike of coronavirus, a serious flu outbreak, Brexit and flooding, it has emerged.
The head of the Ministry of Defence's strategy and operations revealed that Downing Street has asked for tabletop exercises, simulating a combination of emergencies, to be carried out by army chiefs, Whitehall departments and local authorities by the end of August in order to prepare for the possible winter disaster.
One might ask some questions. The role of the military in flooding is obvious, albeit a sign of failure in domestic policy.
The role of the military in the initial stages of a pandemic might also be apparent. But in its recurrence? Why is that necessary?
And since when were the military part of the NHS when it came to flu management?
But Brexit? What's that about? Is this to defend the state? Or to control border chaos we have had years to plan for but have failed to do? Is it to enforce a border in the Irish Sea? Or could it just be to suppress the civil unrest that almost inevitable food and medicine shortages might give rise to?
Looked at however you will, the need to put our diminished armed forces on alert is a sign of policy failure. By it may be something much more sinister than that as well.
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I’m not sure that government wide emergency gaming, involving local authorities as well as central departments that include the MoD, amounts to putting the armed forces on alert.
From a resources point of view, using your army in domestic situations may look reasonable but to me it is scraping the barrel policy and tactics wise. And I agree that the prospect of public anger gives it a double edged meaning.
I’ve seen comments here from people who seem to think that you are over reacting and that those sorts of things just can’t happen here. All I can say to that is, think about how BREXIT came about, and then ask yourselves some searching questions. The Leave brigade did not expect to win. Why? Because of their audacity perhaps? But they did win. Audacity won.
This is an age I think therefore of political audacity – outrageous acts committed in plain sight and a suspension of disbelief both in the press and a society looking the other way in its devices as they entertain them 24/7.
‘Surely they wouldn’t do that’ I hear some of you say. Look at who your are dealing with, consider the FACT that they hold you, me/us/in utter contempt (they’ve written about it often enough – yes?).
Democracy is the only thing that we have that will remove the sort of thinking that Governs us now. And people like Cummings and Gove who are extremists really know this and their job is to make that democratic process & potential weaker.
What I’m saying is that I fear that too many of us are in denial about just how bad things really are. Left unchallenged, Boris and Co’s emboldened audacity could reach levels of ethical and moral depravity never seen before and the age of enlightenment will truly be over.
A new dark age might arrive quicker than you might think. And I believe it is at our doors NOW.
We do not live in a democracy, and haven’t done for a while. Since Murdoch and his cronies bought the 1997 election, they have continued to own successive Govts. 2017 was a real shock for them, and as can be seen, they have pulled out all the stops to make sure it never happens again.
English corruption from the elites, MPs, Media, is now clear for all to see, yet there is nothing that can be done within the system. The only solution is outside the system, by revolution, civil unrest, general strike, to remove the corrupt leaders, and to coin a phrase ” drain the swamp”!
In order to succeed. there would need to be a plan for after, and it must be based on sound economics (GND, MMT) and social inclusion, rather than political biases
I do not agree
Although I am all in favour of peaceful protest as a driver of change
Well researching my post Brexit dystopian sci fi novel involved forecasting a number of worse case scenarios. One included both high food shortages plus preferential distribution to London and the south such that the North and Scotland received much less. Any transport of food north had to go via convoy which needed to be protected by the army from increasingly commonplace hijacking. Its still sitting there as a viable scenario!
Surely just borrowed from Trump who is sending in federal (centralised) personnel to enforce central lunacies on the state by state (read local authority) competences.
The big unknown though is how the Army might respond to some of these situations.
The US Armed Forces have been clear about the legal limits of their power.
How might The Army react if they have to deal with either a second wave or Brexit related unrest, after all their own friends and families will be affected and possibly behave in the same way as the rest of the population
I think the army would have major problem acting against civil unrest
What army?
Indeed
Well, when we see The Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) patrolling the streets we will know that the proverbial has hit the fan.
In the past the manpower cuts to our armed forces and police have left me convinced that Britain could never become a police state because any putative dictator would have insufficient manpower to enforce it. That hasn’t changed but it has become increasingly obvious that the manipulation of public opinion and the successful call for people to make sacrifices for the NHS shows that there is a high level of community responsibility in Britain that could be malignly exploited by wicked people pulling the strings. So hope for the best prepare for the worst.
I suggest everyone re-reads Naomi Klein on Disaster Capitalism and Nancy McLean on Democracy in Chains .
And consider Chile in 1973. They thought they thought they were a liberal democracy then too.